(FORTUNE Magazine) – Unless you've been living in (or hugging) a tree, you know the country has faced a double whammy this year: a tech disaster and an energy crisis. Here are four companies that have weathered the first and may help ease the second.

--Grainger David and Julie Schlosser

SEA POWER & ASSOCIATES: The Berkeley company's Wave Rider technology consists of a series of buoys that harness wave movements, transforming them into electricity (courtesy of a hydraulic pump). The young company, which recently won the University of California at Berkeley's Haas Social Venture Competition, estimates that just 0.2% of ocean energy could satiate the world's electricity demand. Surf's up! (We hope.) www.seapower.cc

RELATIVITY TECHNOLOGIES: Recycling for the Information Age: Relativity, of Cary, N.C., makes software that updates old code for use in new systems, saving important data from information oblivion. If only it could salvage our eight-tracks... www.relativity.com

SILICON ENERGY: Rolling blackouts got you down? This Alameda, Calif., company sells a suite of software that tracks and manages energy consumption. It helps suppliers, such as PG&E, and major power consum-ers, like university campuses, conserve electricity--and cash. www.siliconenergy.com

ENVIROCYCLE: When technology dies, it goes to Envirocycle's Hallstead, Pa., facility to be reincarnated. The nation's largest recycler of computer equipment took in more than 550,000 monitors and about 52 million pounds of broken glass last year. www.enviroinc.com